California Globe

On Thursday, Tesla CEO and multi-billionaire Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of the San Francisco-based social media site Twitter, ousting the CEO and other top executives shortly after the deal was done.

Musk, a longtime proponent of Twitter, first announced his plan to purchase Twitter in April of this year. However, as the months went by, Musk tried several times to back out of the deal, citing numerous concerns with the social media site, including the mishandling of security issues, paying out a whistleblower, and the question of fake and spam accounts. Outside of the deal, many users have also questioned the deal, noting their own concerns of if Musk would allow former users, such as former President Donald Trump, back onto the platform and if Musk would move the company outside of California like he did with Tesla last year.

Despite the lingering concerns, Musk reversed course this month and began pursuing a close to the deal, even being photographed carrying a kitchen sink through the company’s headquarters in San Francisco. With the deal complete on Thursday, Musk immediately instituted many large changes. This included making the company private due to much of the $44 billion going to buying out all stock in Twitter. He also fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who had been CEO since November 2021, as well as CFO Ned Segal and Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde. In addition, Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk for not completing the deal will be dropped as a result of the deal.

What’s next for Twitter is largely unknown. Musk currently has an all-hands-on-deck meeting planned for Friday, as well as more individual meetings with higher-ups not fired on Thursday. But beyond that, questions remain. In the past, Musk has gone back and forth on releasing a large chunk of Twitter’s workforce once in charge, as well as expanding Twitter to provide more services similar to other platforms like WeChat, which allows users to pay for services and other things through it. The question also remains of if banned users will com back. While Musk has promised to allow former President Trump back on Twitter, Trump himself has said that he may not go back to using it even if Musk owns it.

Questions remain in Twitter sale

In California, the largest question is if Musk will keep Twitter in San Francisco, or if he moves the company out, how much of a presence it will have remaining in the Bay Area. Many in Texas have urged Musk to move the headquarters there once the sale went through, potentially costing San Francisco thousands of jobs and tens of millions in lost taxes.

“The vast majority of Twitter employees are opposed to the company moving to Texas,” explained Anthony Ferry, a San Francisco tech consultant, to the Globe on Thursday. “It’s not exactly a secret. But now that Musk is cleaning house, and is shown to be unafraid of getting rid of people he doesn’t really approve of, hoo boy, the climate might be changing on that. It’s way too early to know since this just dropped today, but it’s a change. A lot of tech companies, for example, offer stock in lieu of higher pay and other things, and now that Twitter is private, it could spark a change. We just don’t know at this point.”

“I think there is a fair chance he’ll move the headquarters, but like Tesla, a lot is probably going to stay in place. I mean, he might move out of San Francisco and to another city in Silicon Valley, but there will be a presence out here for sure. Tesla kept the factories, many offices, and is even now re-expanding out here.”

“But, right now, we need to see what else he does with these early moves and where all of this is going. This is sending shockwaves right now, and we’re going to be hearing of more major changes in the days and weeks ahead.”

More major announcements on the Twitter purchase and changes at the company are expected in the coming days.